David S. Goyer came up with the storyline for the hotly anticipated Superman film 'Man of Steel' while he had writer's block scripting 'The Dark Knight Rises'

The screenwriter has revealed he came up with the plot for the hotly anticipated superhero film during a difficult period when he and producer Christopher Nolan were meant to be working on the final installment of their Christian Bale-starring Batman trilogy.

He explained to Collider.com: "Chris and I were working on 'The Dark Knight Rises', working on the story, and we were blocked. We agreed to part ways for a couple of weeks and just see if something had bubbled at the surface.

"I was wasting time and procrastinating and took out an archive edition of some of the original Superman comic books, action comic books and started re-reading them because I couldn't figure out this plot point on 'Dark Knight Rises'. I just randomly sat down one afternoon and wrote up some ideas for Superman."

Goyer then met up with Nolan a week later to begin work on 'The Dark Knight Rises' again, but instead found himself presenting his ideas for the proposed Superman film.

He said: "Because Chris likes to procrastinate as well, he said, 'Let's hear it.' So I told him and he literally called Jeff Robinov, who's the head of Warner Bros, while I was sitting there and said, 'Jeff, Dave just told me this take on Superman and you need to hear it. I'd like to produce it. Can we come in?' And we went in the next day.

"That's how it happened. No, we weren't trying to do it, it just happened."

The blockbuster film was directed by Zack Snyder with Nolan as producer. Henry Cavill stars as the iconic superhero from Krypton and his human alter-ego Clark Kent.